etched in my palms (the truths i hold for you)
by geekchic64
Summary: ten truths about love, death, and an unfair world.


**A/N:** In the wise words of Octavia, I'm back bitches!

I am SO sorry for the unintentional hiatus I took. This semester was crazy busy with all major classes for my double major plus an additional gen ed (like, i barely had time to sleep or eat). But I made the Dean's List and I'm on break until mid-January, so it's all good. I'm going to work on my other shtuff ASAP. I haven't abandoned anything, just some things are on an unofficial hiatus.

OKAY ANYWAY SORRY I SUCK BUT HERE'S A QUICK ONE-SHOT INSPIRED BY THE S3 TRAILER!

Enjoy! X

.

 _Truth number one: She loves you._

.

"Maybe we do."

Her lips are soft under yours, which is probably the most surprising to you. Death has touched her tongue so often, you would have imagined her tasting of metal and dirt, but instead you find yourself melting. You find yourself kissing her, gently pressing back, and thinking of your first deep breath on this new planet. The way your lungs filled with sweet air and how your feet were planted on solid ground.

She is soft and you feel your soul sighing.

She is soft and tastes of sunlight and hope.

She is soft.

She is soft, and you know that she loves you.

It is in the way that looks at you as if you truly fell from the stars. She looks at you as if you held the secrets to the universe. She looks at you as if the two of you have done this dance for lifetimes, always somehow finding each other.

(Maybe you have.)

It is in the way that she speaks to you, as if she had finally found someone who could truly hear what she was saying. It is in the way that she slowly reveals herself, slowly taking down each wall around her heart, as if she knows you will understand what each scar means.

(Maybe you do.)

Because she kisses you and she is soft, and for once in this world that is saturated with war, and destruction, and death… She kisses you, and you feel as if you have finally found where you are meant to be.

She kisses you, and you feel as if you are finally home.

She kisses you, and you know that she loves you.

So you kiss her back.

.

 _Truth number two: She left you._

.

She left you.

You are no stranger to heartache, to pain, to feelings of hopelessness so strong you couldn't breathe. You are no stranger to the monsters of this world.

But she left you and you're staring down a door alone on a mountain, and suddenly, for the first time, you don't know what to do. You've always had a plan, you always had some course of action that saved you and your people. But now? Now you have nothing. You have absolutely nothing except for confusion and hurt so deep into your being, you imagine canyons in your heart.

She left you.

You turn from the door and leave your heart behind because your people are still here and they need you.

You can still feel the phantom of her lips as you pull the lever.

.

 _Truth number three: You could have loved her._

.

You have left your people behind, unable to look at them without a reminder of what you had to do to save them. You turn away, because they look at you as if you are their hero. They look at you as if you are unable to fall, unable to crumble to dust.

If only they knew of the ruins in your chest.

You turn from them, you blend into the forest, and you ignore the hollow of your bones.

You cannot be Clarke Griffin anymore, the girl that death follows. So you bury her beneath new hair and a new name and become a stranger to the world once more.

You could have loved her. You could have loved her with every fiber of your being, until the end of your days. You could have loved her until there was nothing left of you to give.

(One night you scream until you cannot breathe. You scream until you are sure your throat bleeds. You scream because _you could have loved her_. In another life, in another time, you would have loved her. You would have traced her soft-as-sunlight skin yet still knowing how strong she is. You would have kissed her and told her stories and remind her of the good that is in her. You would have gone to sleep next to her, limbs tangled together until it was impossible to tell where one started and the other began. You would have woken up next to her, when the mornings were still and calm and the only thing that existed were the two of you.)

You could have loved her.

But you cannot love anymore.

(You find it ironic that she probably would be proud of you).

.

 _Truth number four: You hate her._

.

(Days have turned into weeks, and every night your thoughts race, constantly going over what you had to do. You try to think of different ways that it could have ended – ones where you could have saved the innocent. Still, every night, your thoughts always end with you slowly pulling the lever.)

There is a fire within you. The fire that burned her warriors. The fire that slowly melted the mountain. The fire that has burned your skin every day since she left you. There is a fire within you, and you feel the smoke choking you until you can no longer breathe. There is a fire within you, and the moment you are alone with her, you let that fire rage – burning anything that was left within you.

The knife is cold. Your hands do not shake as you press it against her neck.

Still, she never once looks away from you.

She never once tries to escape your grip – which you know she could easily do.

You snarl instead and think of the worlds you have burned down. You grip the knife tighter as you think of her leaving you on that mountain.

You think of the pain you have carried around in your heart and how your spine is breaking under the weight of the world.

You think of how she kissed you, as gentle as rain and as soft as butterflies. You think of how she looked at you on the mountain as she left you. You think of how unfair the life has been to you and you think of the unspoken promises she made to you. You think of how she shattered them with every step she took away from you.

You are tired and numb but the one thing you can actually feel anymore is the hatred that you have for her. So you grip it like your hand around the knife, and you use it to remind yourself that you're still alive.

You hate her.

"Do it, Clarke. Kill me."

So you press your knife against her throat.

.

 _Truth number five: You could never hate her._

.

Until your body gives out and the knife clatters to the ground. You feel the tension in your body leave in a dry sob and it takes every last bit of energy you have not to collapse on the ground.

(You will not give her the satisfaction of seeing you break.)

You step away from her and you feel as though you cannot breathe. You feel as if you have been released into space and all of the air in your lungs has been sucked out.

You can't look at her.

You can't look at her because you will know that you have failed.

You can't kill her.

You want, more than anything, to be able to slowly drag the knife against her skin until she bleeds.

But you _can't_.

You want to hate her. To blame her for everything. To be able to look at her and not feel the ghosts of the hope you once had rattle around in your chest.

But you can't.

Because you can't hate her.

You could never hate her.

.

 _Truth number six: She is the only one who understands you._

.

You look at her and you see the same shadows that continue to creep next to you, drowning in her green eyes. You see her sorrow and pain, and you recognize it as the faint echo in your chest.

There is a moment, before the knife stills on the ground, where you could have sworn she actually looked disappointed. As though a tiny part of her had hoped you would actually kill her.

(You get it; you can't possibly count how many mornings you have been disappointed to find yourself waking up.)

And then, suddenly, you realize that the both of you will be the only two who simply… Understand. The weight of war. The burden of sacrifice. What it takes to save your people. The fact that death has slowly wrapped itself around you until your entire being was encased in darkness.

She is the only one who understands you, because she has had to do the same thing as you: make impossible choices.

You feel a tear slowly fall from your eye because she is looking at you with so much vulnerability and pain, she is no longer a God of war, but a girl whose world has been ripped apart and burned down.

And you understand.

My god, you understand.

.

 _Truth number seven: You need her._

.

You have nightmares. This is not a new development. But you are back in the middle of a war, and so they have become stronger and more frequent.

Often times you find yourself in her room, lying next to her as your breaths swirl together under the moonlight. For even in sleep you cannot escape death.

So you escape death in her arms.

You surround yourself in her existence until you are drowning. Her lips remain gentle even when you are not. She whispers your name as if you were a god and you scream hers as if you were trying to make the heavens fall. The bruises on her skin remind you that she is soft and mortal and this world is harsh.

But you shudder and forget about the nightmares and the blood that stains your hands and your heart. You feel her arms wrap around you and you try not to imagine that it is death slowly consuming you.

She is the only one who understands you, and she is the only one who can help you.

You need her.

You need her because you have been broken and she is the only one who knows how to put shattered pieces back together because she is as broken as you.

She whispers your name, and kisses your lips, and drowns out your nightmares with her fingertips. She is there for you to listen to the steady thudding in her chest and the way she tells you stories about the stars.

She is there for you and you drink in her existence because you need her.

You need her, because without her, you would turn to dust and blow away in the wind.

.

 _Truth number eight: You know how this will end._

.

No matter how many of your pieces she puts back together, you are still in a new war – and you understand just what that could mean.

Somehow or another, you have managed to beat the odds. You have scratched and clawed your way to new sunrises. You have had close calls and lucky days.

But you know that, one day, that luck will run out.

This is a war you don't know how to fight. This is a war with no good guys and no bad guys, there is only death.

You watch her as she grieves, day after day. You watch her as she adds new scars to her back. You watch as your pale skin slowly turns red.

You know how this will end, and it makes your heart skip beats. Because you would give anything – more than you have already given – to change the ending.

But you know you can't, because you look death in the eye every day and _you know how this will end_.

In a world where bullets and arrows fly, trying to pierce skin and puncture hearts, it is your lips that press against her skin. Your lips and heart are bruised and her eyes remind you of the stars you came from and you know how this will end but you ignore it because you both are here for now.

(Every morning when you wake up and see her sleeping next to you, you take a moment to remember how to breathe.)

.

 _Truth number nine: You love her._

.

You almost tell her one night. The moonlight cascades over her skin, illuminating a myriad of scars and tattoos – each one a different story. She has lived thousands of lives and has spoken hundreds of languages. She has fought war after war after war. She has lost. She has won. She has drowned. She has burned. She has bled. She has lived.

You love her.

You love her as if it's the only thing you know how to do in this world.

You love her and it's easier than breathing because there are moments when air cannot make it into your lungs. But even when your chest is burning, you continue to love her.

You love her as you trace her skin with your fingertips.

You love her as you sketch her, forever immortalizing her on your canvas.

You love her as your heart beats to the sound of her name.

You love her even when she does not love herself.

You love her even when you can't love anything else.

You wish you could tell her. You wish you could dig deep within and release it in a whisper against her skin. You wish you could somehow make her know how _alive_ she makes you feel.

But you don't.

You go to sleep and wake up to fight another war, loving her during every terrifying second.

.

 _Truth number ten: No one wins._

.

At the end of the day, it is simple: no one wins.

You have known this from day one. The stone in your gut continued to remind you, day after day.

Yet still you marched forward, always hoping that you would be able to see another day.

Because you knew that one day, you wouldn't.

You just didn't realize how soon it would be.

You didn't see the warrior sneak up behind you. The knife is cold, but this time it is pressed against your neck. You see her across the forest, running towards you, eyes ablaze under her dark war paint. The sun is streaming through the treetops and it makes her hair shine.

She is so beautiful.

The world moves in slow motion for you and it allows you to take in the final image of her. It allows you to take one more deep breath, and exhale all of your pain and anguish and fight that was left inside you.

She is so beautiful, and you are at peace.

Because you love her, and she loves you. And she pulls out her dagger and she screams your name, but you know how this ends. It's quick and it's sharp and it's painless in a way your life failed to be.

The knife is cold, but you remember how warm she is.

(You wish you had told her that you loved her.)

"Lexa," you breathe out and watch her eyes widen.

(But you suppose you have been doing so every time you say her name.)

Death kisses you as soft as her lips.


End file.
